I’ve been after getting some chickens for ages. My original ‘green’ and ethical intention was to make my own chicken coop from recycled wooden pallets and to get some ex-battery hens. After weeks of deliberation and attempting to design a coop in Cinema 4D, I realised that I was deluding myself with my carpentry skills, plus the lady from the battery hen rescue place said there were no birds available until August.

So, this weekend I bought a chicken coop and bought two lovely new Bantam hens.

After the easy to assemble flat pack coop has built it was a fairly simple matter to clip the chickens wings (totally painless, just trimming some feathers) and let them explore their new home.

The chickens love scratching around under the conifers at the back of the garden. Infact, I had to lop off quite a few lower branches as we just couldn’t see the chickens as they spend almost all their time under the trees, eating bugs and worms.

One of the chickens used the nesting box and layed our first egg.

Not a massive egg as the chickens are still ‘pullets’ (under one year old), but as they grow older the eggs will get larger. Felix had this one fried with some chips.

We’ve not really named the chickens yet, although the name ‘nugget’ is a favourite for one of them. Other possible names are ‘dipper’ ‘gravy’ and ‘chicken in a basket’. If I get another three ex-battery hens I’ll probably call those ‘Kay’, ‘Eff’ & ‘Cee’. The coop is large enough for about 8. They don’t need that much room inside and they like to huddle close together on the perches.

If I had £333,333.34 for every nomination Access received at this year’s Chip Shop, I’d be a millionaire!

That’s right, we’re up for three awards.

Further to this statement on How Do

“Last week the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, also asked MOSI and Body Worlds 4 to donate money to an ad campaign countering any adverse effect the show might have on people who otherwise may have been tempted to become organ donors”

we decided to write our own ads promoting organ donation. Two executions of the resulting campaign are in the running for ‘Best Charity Ad’.

Staying with the Body Worlds theme, our third nomination is for an ambient idea we just weren’t allowed to run.

The award ceremony takes place on August 21st in Edinburgh.

Fingers crossed.

The BBC reported tonight that Mozilla are attempting to break a record for the most downloads over a 24 hour period when Firefox 3 goes on general release today (17th June). Intending to download FF3, I did the honourable thing and followed the link from the BBC News article to the spreadfirefox.com website only to be greeted by a Drupal developer’s nightmare. An ‘Unable to connect to database server’ error.

It looks like the Marketing ploy for drawing attention to the Firefox site has been a little bit too much for the poor web server to cope with causing a database crash. This proves even some of the big guys (who have probably planned this for months) suffer technical glitches sometimes.

I just hope that they get this back up and running soon because it’s not the best advert for Firefox or Drupal and I’m still quite eager to have a bash with FF3.

I spotted this ‘grass roots’ marketing effort whilst walking around Chester, the morning after a very enjoyable Visit Chester and Cheshire tourism awards. It made me smile but did little to entice me in. Nothing to do with the charm of the pub but everything to do with my still thumping head.

Is it just me or are we being plagued by pidgeons? I even tried eating one the blighters last night in an attempt to do my bit to cull their kind. They’re everywhere (or at least evidence of their being everywhere!). I went for a run this morning and nearly came a cropper under their low flying exploits. Does anyone else fear that we are being taken over? I might be looking over my shoulder, but it’s not the credit crunch I’m losing sleep over, it’s the cooing grey army!

Back to the food variety though - it was really nice. And I was surprised. It was a set menu (at abode in Manchester), so I had no choice - I would never have actively chosen pidgeon, but I’m glad I did. Not that I’ll be trying it again too soon, or abode for that matter. Abode is a new hotel/restaurant on Piccadilly opposite the Malmaison. It’s a stange area full of new, modern, expensive buildings alongside the old, run-down, decrepid buildings - not for me.

And as for the pidgeons, I hope they go back to trafalgar square, where they belong.

Armed with remote controls and nunchucks, it’s time to commence the battle of the Wii. Girls are rocking the bowling alley with 4 dazzling strikes in a row, with the smelly boys gaining a cheeky second wind (hee hee!) and (only just) taking the winners medal…

Training camp now begins for tomorrow’s boxing round (cue the Rocky training anthem).

Not decided where to go on your summer hols yet?? Well, at the moment I’m proud to say that Sweden is experiencing and forecasting some brilliant weather! With burning sunshine (nearly 30 degrees!) and lovely beaches I’m packing my bikini and will leave Manchester for a few days! Lets just hope the petrol strike tomorrow won’t prevent me from getting to the airport in time… that would just be my kind of luck!